Cable colours and extending upstairs ring main Ask questions and find answers to many subjects relating to electrics and electrical work

[Ahearn11199]

Hi I’m extending my upstairs ring main
Ring new cables to new sockets with brown blue earth cable
Come to join it to house cables and they are red and black
Is this ok or do I need to get red and black
Thanks for any help given

[Mr White]

Electricity does not know what colour the insulation of a cable is.
You should connect the SAME SIZE cables Live to live, neutral to neutral and earth to earth.
How are you going to test your new addition and how are you connecting it?

[chriscba]

The new harmonised cable colours (brown live & blue neutral) were brought in on 2004, most older properties still have the old red & black, however, these old cables are perfectly ok to stay there until the need to rewire the whole property.
So in your case, the brown live will connect to the red & the blue neutral will connect to the black.
Just make sure you keep the ring as a circuit. How many sockets are you adding

[chriscba]

To do this properly & safely a electrician would need to give you advice first, normally if the cables run under the floorboards, you would remove a cable from the 2 sockets you need to run the ring between, then run a cable from the existing socket to the new sockets & back into the other existing socket.
It still would need testing for continuity with a multimeter when complete.